


In the Defeat Sublime

by freddieofhearts



Category: Queen (Band), Rock Music RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eating Disorders, Family Dynamics, Freddie Mercury Lives, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lung Cancer, M/M, Major Illness, Non-Reclaimed Slurs, Parental Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychotherapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2020-11-09 00:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20844617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freddieofhearts/pseuds/freddieofhearts
Summary: Freddie Mercury is living with HIV in the 2000s. It’s great except when it’s not.“Rog wants to come and see you,” Phoebe says, his voice softened into familiarity. He sounds much less frightened than he did two minutes ago, Freddie thinks. Jim’s presence is like a magic spell: what I didn’t know I was looking for, all those years ago.(Chapter Four)





	1. Prologue: 2008

*

“I don’t really want to go,” Freddie whispers. Words nearly lost in Jim’s shirt, but not quite. 

“You never want to go, darling.” 

He isn’t impatient. The reluctance is real every week, the anxiety. In some strange way, Freddie even welcomes illness—which he has always despised in himself, coddled in everyone else—if it falls on a Friday. He can stay on their squashiest and least presentable sofa. He can stay on Jim’s lap. He can evade any requirement to speak of the past, or the present, or heaven forbid, himself. 

“Phoebe could ring up,” Freddie says hopefully, “And send my apologies—I _am_ apologetic…”

“Well, there’s no need to be, because we’re leaving at half past ten.” He softens the words with a kiss on the top of Freddie’s head. The greying hair there is flossy and thinning, unrecognisable for what it was—but the more clearly he can see the astounding delicacy of Freddie’s head, the skull itself, the more tight-throated, the more cherishing he feels. 

He can never say so. Freddie would wail, “I’m bald, I hate it, it’s not fair!” 

Love is spoken of a lot, but looks more rarely. 

“I actually don’t want to,” Freddie says, sounding years and years younger than he is. “I’m not being silly. Please.” 

How is Jim supposed to respond to that, for God’s sake? He’s not a total moron; he knows that letting Freddie bat his eyelashes and avoid things isn’t good for him. 

His fingers trace a sharp, warm cheekbone. 

“I’ll be right outside the whole time.” He always is. 

“We can come straight home.” They always do; Freddie’s usually in no shape for anything else. 

“Roger’s coming tonight.” Through trial and error, he and Phoebe have discovered that it does, in fact, help to have one or two visitors in the evening—drawn from a minuscule and highly trusted pool, of course. 

Freddie isn’t protesting any more, only lying against his chest. 

Of course it’s not as bad as it was after Bomi Bulsara died, when Freddie stopped talking, and stopped eating, and stopped taking any of the tablets. 

Gordon came every day. The word ‘involuntary’ floated in the air, but Jim said, “It’ll kill him.” 

Peter’s face was drawn; he looked almost as bad as Freddie. 

“Take it from me,” he said, “He wouldn’t survive that—some way or other—I mean. Shut up, he can’t…” 

Jim won’t ever forget how Roger looked, standing over the bed, in tears. 

In the end it was easy. Gordon sedated him, and he was taken to the hospital in a private ambulance, unrestrained except for Jim and Roger holding a hand each. All they did was put a little tube down his nose to keep him going, so they could feed him, and crush up the antivirals and put them through it—Freddie wouldn’t have to decide whether to take them or not take them. 

From there, they managed. He couldn’t be seen in the press or there’d be another avalanche, another brutal onslaught—like the diagnosis leaking, like coming out. 

The pictures, Roger spat, would be worth twenty times their weight in gold to those heartless cunts. More, perhaps. 

For the first seven months, she came to the house. And by then, the tube was out and he was taking the tablets again, and he’d started talking. Seemed better.

“Do you think you might be ready to come to my consulting room, Freddie?” she said. “I know it’s upsetting having these sessions here, at home…” 

Four years ago now. It’s dangerous, a stupid risk, really, but he’ll never sit properly in the car on the way back. Only in Jim’s lap, embraced as completely as their confines permit. 

The seatbelt is over them both, but Jim’s under no illusion that it would do much if the worst happened. He can imagine exactly what Roger would say, embittered, especially if there’s any photographer within a mile or so: _I knew it, I knew they wouldn’t be fucking satisfied till they’d Princess Di’d him_. Yes, even if it’s all their fault, all Freddie’s fault, for refusing to sit up and wear his own seatbelt. 

And Freddie would say something, something like, well, in the arms of the man I love. Darling, could be worse!

“Is it today specially?” Jim says now. There might be a reason, something he’s forgotten, or simply doesn’t know. Freddie still has many uncharted reaches. He strokes the little face pressed close to him. 

For a long time, he gets no answer. When Freddie speaks, his voice is thinned and vague.

“I feel sick.” 

“You haven’t been sick, have you? I saw you giving Mimi that bacon, you didn’t eat any–” 

He feels Freddie shake his head. On any other day of the week, it’s unlike him to complain; more often Jim will discover him looking grey and sweaty after a second or third bout of diarrhoea, not having mentioned it—or he’ll be sick suddenly in the garden, then be stricken with embarrassment rather than self pity. Mentioning a vague symptom like this is Friday-itis. 

“Do you want some promethazine, poppet? I can reach it, you don’t even have to move–” He keeps the common medicines at hand. 

But Freddie doesn’t. He is rather near weeping, which makes him furious with himself, ashamed. Who is like this, before even driving to their session? Who is such a fool? He presses his fingers against his eyes, breathing hard. Oh, Jim—oh, Jim, ten thousand times better and more patient than he deserves. 

“I love you,” Jim says quietly. He can tell, at least some of the time, when Freddie really needs to hear it aloud. 

The youngest, newest cat, a black scrap by the name of Sally, skitters into the room. 

“Someone hasn’t seen enough of you this morning,” Jim says, hand under Freddie’s chin. “Look—she’s standing on end, she wants that Fabergé–”

Freddie squeaks and sits up abruptly. The black kitten is swinging innocently from one of the new bedroom curtains, which is a perfectly tolerable level of cat-related wear and tear. 

“Lies,” he gasps, pushing against Jim’s chest. “Monster. Defaming my baby.” 

He uncurls from the bed, out of Jim’s arms, where he’s been ever since the end of a miserable and abortive breakfast. It’s astonishing, Jim thinks, how graceful he is, at over sixty. Far too thin, but he still moves like a dancer, almost like a boy. Even knowing he’s in pain –

Unhooked from the curtain and collected onto Freddie’s shoulder, Sally makes a cross squeaking noise which so resembles a diminutive version of Freddie’s own that Jim, taken by surprise, laughs. 

“All right, all right,” Freddie says. He doesn’t sound angry at all. Tired, and sad, but that’s how it is on Fridays. “You have to wear the jumper. And you have to let me take a picture of you.” 

The kitten has crawled up onto Freddie’s shoulder now and turned herself around. Two pairs of bright eyes are staring at Jim expectantly. 

He’s putty. Putty in their wicked little paws. 

“One picture. _One_ picture, your majesty–” 

Freddie giggles. 

“...Just you try it; you’re not too big for a smack on the bottom–”

It’s an empty threat. He’s never, ever hit him. Freddie slides onto the bed, with the kitten cradled in his hands, and crawls up, close again, closer. He smells sweet, like bubble bath and tea. 

Sally is placed, with infinite gentleness, infinite care, on Jim’s shoulder instead, and Freddie presses his face into Jim’s chest again, as if he too is a small animal seeking something, and Jim alone has the power to grant it.

*


	2. The Garden Lodge Flu Clinic

*

Every year, Jim faithfully holds Freddie’s hand for the flu jab. It’s not that he’s afraid of needles, he doesn’t much mind them—it’s the comfort given unasked for; how even for this trivial pain, he isn’t being left all alone.

Afterwards they swap places and Freddie holds Jim’s hand, a responsibility he takes seriously. He does the same for Phoebe, another recipient of the Garden Lodge Flu Clinic’s attentions. He would do the same for every cleaning lady if Gordon would let him hang around for the duration, only he won’t; he says Freddie in this mood makes him a little nervous and he might inject someone’s ear by mistake. 

One rainy morning in October 2008, Gordon drinks a cup of excellent French coffee and eats one of the new petits fours. Pistachio, candied violets—Freddie won’t touch them, but everyone else is terrifically impressed and Phoebe says he’s grown two hat sizes as a consequence, and maybe a waist size too, because testing is essential.

“You don’t have to bribe me, you know,” Gordon says. “You can get this at any old chemist. Pop round to Boots…” 

He’s smiling. It’s only in recent years that they’ve begun to be able to tease Freddie again about going out in public, after a rather long interval of funning on that topic being simply out of the question. 

“I like bribing you, dear,” Freddie says, from the armchair where he is curled up, rather than precisely sitting. “It’s how I ensure you always have such a good bedside manner…” 

“Freddie!” Jim says. It’s not that he isn’t used to it, and Gordon’s known Freddie even longer than he has—has been with them through all the terrible years, the touch and go nights, the bronchitis, the fevers… Still, it’s hard to rid himself of that old, boyhood deference towards anyone bearing the title of ‘doctor’. 

“Hello, darling,” Freddie says, inverting his back so he can look at Jim upside down. He admires the firelight flickering on Jim’s skin. “You have an excellent bedside manner too, don’t worry.” 

He’s well aware Freddie isn’t alluding to illness, but Jim thinks: I do, now. I do. It took a while, but I learnt it. Funny, what you can turn your hand to, or your mind –

He’s always been large, from a boy. Never the sort you’d think to call on, to sit by a sickbed; he’s the last person—might not be fair, but it’s true. You look to a softer man for that, if not a woman. 

The easiest thing, strangely, was holding him without doing more. No sex please: he’s dying. Not even from the illness, not yet, but from the drugs, from everything, from live-fast-die-young. Not that he was so young, not any more, only it seemed so, in those days—scarcely more than a boy, a child. Bloating him up with steroids till his skin was sore, and it hurt him to be touched. His eyes looking out with a wild lost gaze. 

Now Jim feels like he’s more or less a world champion cuddler. Even though the sex came back eventually, the clinging stayed—the more he’s learnt, heard, watched, the better he’s understood that it was always there, in truth, always in Freddie. He’d clung to a lot of mouldy posts over the years, that was the real problem. 

And Jim learnt everything else too. Patience he never knew he had, for a start. Keeping Freddie in bed without sitting on him is a struggle much of the time, even when he unequivocally ought to be there, resting quietly. It doesn’t, as Roger has observed, seem to come natural. 

Not to be disgusted, and not to panic. 

“Maybe you’ll get two jabs for being a pain up the arse,” he says, pointing a finger at Freddie. 

Freddie’s drawing breath for the irresistible response when Gordon forestalls him.

“He had his pneumonia jab last year,” he says drily. “And I’m sorry to say that I can’t administer today’s into the gluteus maximus, either, Jim.” 

“Gluteus minimus, in his case,” Jim mutters. “Freddie! You promised Phoebe you’d at least try one this time, come on, love.” 

Gordon’s face is suddenly more serious. He looks hard at Freddie, then back at Jim.

“I’ll write him up for some Fortijuice,” he says. “You can start it tomorrow–”

“No,” Freddie says, outraged, sitting up fast. 

“Let’s weigh you.” Gordon won’t be rattled; they’ve been over it all too many times. “We’ll go up and do it in a minute. Pee first and slippers off, but you can keep your clothes on.” 

“It’s meant to be _flu jabs_.” 

“And it will be flu jabs. But you know we have to keep an eye on it, Freddie, come on.” He’s gentle, though. There are a lot of things making it difficult; no need to be unkind. 

A beat of uncomfortable silence. Freddie swallows, and says, “I don’t want to be fat and old.” He isn’t looking at anyone now, and his face is unreadable. 

Gordon stands up and goes to the fire. He takes his time selecting a log with the tongs—adding it to the flames—choosing another, then poking the fire about. Is it, strictly speaking, a medical matter? Yes, perhaps it is, but it’s one best left to Jim Hutton all the same. 

Footsteps, a sigh. Rustle of clothes. A soft snuffle, and the sound of someone kissing someone’s cheek.

He turns around, ready to go back to his seat and finish his coffee—or if he needs to, try to talk to Freddie, again, about the rigours of an antiviral regimen. About what’s needed.

He's in Jim’s lap now, with his hand holding tight to the sleeve of the red jumper Jim has on. 

“Better?” he says, looking more at Freddie than at Jim, although the question could be for either. 

A slightly shaky nod. Freddie bites his lip.

“We have our procedures in place,” Jim says. “In case of emergency, apply posterior–” He slaps lightly at the top of his thigh, just next to where Freddie is sitting, mid-lap. 

“Glad to hear you’ve been keeping up with health and safety.” Gordon’s scrutinising Freddie without looking as if he is, picking up another tiny pastry at the same time.

His colour looks decent, thank goodness—liver failure is the constant worry now—but there are dark circles under his eyes, too pronounced. 

“Freddie, are you sleeping?” 

The words are innocent enough, aren’t they? It could be five or six questions, probing and hurtful, but he knows better, as he’s always known that Freddie can’t take it, won’t. There’s an unvoiced limit even here. He’s spoken to Jim alone, and he’s spoken to Phoebe—he’s even talked to David, long, long ago, a hazy recollection now, that snatched talk out in the street, born of frantic worry. 

He probably knows what he ought to know. As much as anyone. 

Jim answers, because Freddie, as if suddenly worn out, has put his head down on the broad shoulder of his love, quiescent as a storybook maiden. Well, Gordon thinks, that’s a trick if ever I saw one. 

“It’s all right,” Jim says, the words coming slowly and piecemeal. He sounds unsure of their truth. 

“Better than all right,” Freddie adds, from his carried-off-by-a-sweetheart posture. “Wonderful, dear. It’s Phoebe you should be worrying about.” 

“I’ll talk to him,” Gordon promises. It’s quicker, agreeing, than trying to convince Freddie not to re-direct attention like this. “Look, why don’t I give Andrea a ring, and talk to her about what might work to help you sleep a bit better…” 

The contents of the sessions are rarely passed on to other professionals, even him, but with sleeping medication, he needs to speak to her. The wrong thing could make it worse, not better, and with Freddie, the aim is always to have him up as much as possible, working as much as he can. If it doesn’t work, if there’s a paradoxical response? Then less sleep. More night terrors, night sweats, enuresis—the impairment to Freddie’s quality of life would be swift and dire. He’s the last person who should be shut in with his unconscious by a drug, unless it can also quieten down the things that dwell there. 

“No,” Freddie is saying, “No, I already have to take–” 

He looks fretful. 

Jim’s hands close over his upper arms, circle them, hold him steady. He feels cold, his sweatshirt too thin for October. 

“Let’s come back to it next week,” he says, “We don’t have to talk about it now, it’s all right. Flu jabs, remember?” He’s smiling at Freddie, teasing a little. As if flu jabs are a long awaited treat. 

Freddie still isn’t quite smiling back, but he seems better almost at once. 

“We’ll get the weight thing over with, come on—go and have a wee, we’ll follow you up. Then we can let him stick things in us; I will if you will…” 

A giggle. Freddie is bad at resisting innuendo. 

He slides off Jim’s lap, and leans over, unable to leave the room without putting his arms round him, without another little kiss to last him up the stairs.

*


	3. Pearls Before: 2009

*

This is their Saturday night, one of them, easily spent in Roger’s kitchen, tapas galore. Plenty of good Rioja for everyone else, and –

“Champagne for the Fusspot,” Roger says, putting his arm around Freddie and giving him an affectionate little squeeze. 

“I am _not_–”

Jim laughs. He’s making up a plate for Freddie, before starting his own. Sarina smiles and passes him the Spanish omelette, a moderately reliable option. Roger has conceived a surprising passion for Spanish food, and their chef, Luis, can no longer be called a new addition to the household, not now he’s been around for—goodness, Jim thinks, more than two years? 

Time really does fly. 

“How about–” Roger’s trying to sound serious. “I put you on the mantelpiece–? I think I could still do it…”

“You dare!” Freddie whacks him gently with a linen napkin, as if Roger’s nothing more than an impetuous puppy about to eat something it shouldn’t. It’s too much, and Roger splutters, unable to keep up a front of seriousness. 

Freddie, who feels the cold even in early summer, is wearing cashmere: a natty little ensemble in off-white. He looks small, almost too dainty to be real, and Jim wonders, not for the first time, how on earth he has the nous to wear clothes like that and expect to get through a picky, messy meal like tapas without dropping food on them. 

And yet he manages it somehow. Chatting away to Roger with reassuring vigour, which Jim likes to see. Roger gets the best out of him. Even in summer, he’ll see that the house is extra warm when they’re over—Sarina is clothed in a pale green dress, sleeveless, as if she’s living in a different climate altogether from Freddie, and Roger’s shirt is visibly thin. Freddie sits with Roger at first, after they’ve finished eating, not with Jim, leaning against him, giggling, his champagne glass tilting dangerously in his hand. 

Jim rescues it before Freddie showers Roger and Sarina’s sofa with the blessings of the vine, but he can feel his own smile, a big dumb grin, and he doesn’t try to suppress it. Not even a little. 

All the same, by elevenish, Freddie looks peaky. It’s one of Craig’s nights, and Freddie still isn’t completely comfortable with him, not like he is with Daniel, and of course with Terry—he won’t thank Jim for enquiries made in the car. So instead of asking, Jim pulls a blanket over him and strokes the fine-boned head resting on his shoulder, as they are driven through the never-darkened streets of London. 

He helps Freddie out of the car very carefully, very slowly, making sure he’s steady on his feet. Craig’s holding the car door, so he still can’t say anything, it will only upset Freddie—best to get inside. 

Once they’re in the hall, he says, “Not feeling well, sweetie?” Making his voice infinitely more casual than he feels, because he is never relaxed, not really, about Freddie having a bad night, or a bad day, or a bad half hour, even. 

“I’m fine.” 

Jim can see he’s trying hard to smile. Doesn’t want to spoil the evening –

That hurts to think about. He doesn’t ask any more questions, but Freddie needs help to get upstairs to their bedroom. Jim more or less undresses him, prepares him for the night, gives him his pills and pops him into bed—it’s quick, he’s quick, but not quick enough, and he can see Freddie’s in pain, though he tries not to show it.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he says, sitting down on the edge of the bed and taking one thin hand in his. It feels hot, which isn’t usual. 

“Just a bit tired, dear. Nothing to worry about.” Freddie’s doing a horrible job of looking all right, which makes Jim think he really may not be. 

He presses the bell that calls Phoebe—for casual stuff they use the internal phone, or Freddie texts, so when he hears this, he’ll know it’s important. He’ll guess why. It’s almost the only reason the bell gets used, Jim thinks, swallowing hard, stroking Freddie’s little hand, which he’s kept hold of. 

Freddie’s eyes have slid closed, but after a moment they flicker open again and he says in a small voice, “Jim—darling—I’m terribly sorry, I—I’m going to be sick.”

A never-ending night, after that, or it feels like one: even with both of them, once Phoebe arrives, panting and anxious, there’s too much to be done, and never enough hands to make light work of it. When Freddie’s got all the unfortunate tapas up, he can’t stop retching and shivering, and the only thing that comforts him is to be held, steadily and gently, in someone’s arms. But that leaves the other someone to do all the necessary and at times far from pleasant work of attending to him. 

Not that Phoebe minds.

By one in the morning, his temperature is past 102, and Jim finds himself giving Phoebe sidelong glances. Now? Or not yet? 

They’re going to have to call Gordon—there’s no choice in the matter—if he can’t keep anything down. He’ll get too weak, too quickly, and stopping the medicines, not being able to absorb them, is a risk they simply can’t take. 

A little after five, Jim says, “I think—what do you–?”

“Yes. I really–” 

Phoebe’s dabbing at Freddie’s hot face, and Jim thinks that he looks almost tearful as he breaks off and puts the cloth down, not finishing whatever he started to say. 

Jim nods, and Phoebe slips away through the connecting door. Only snatches of talk are audible, and he doesn’t want to listen anyway, not with Freddie lying against him, dry and over-warm, finally sleeping for a bit. There’s a cough rattling through him now, poor darling, even as he sleeps. 

“He’s coming round now.” 

Phoebe looking better, steadier, less like he might begin to weep. He’s moving into the familiar rhythm of straightening-up-for-the-doctor, and Jim finds it oddly calming too, watching him as he clears away soiled tissues and a basin, a discarded flannel, a glass of water Freddie spurned. 

“He’s ringing through to the AMU to have a bed ready,” Phoebe murmurs, “It depends how he is over the next hour or two, but he wanted to get the ball rolling so we wouldn’t have to wait…” 

Familiar soreness in Jim’s gullet, in his belly, at the thought of Freddie in a hospital bed. Even though it’s not a sure thing, it might not happen, he hates it. The beds are far smaller than their own, yet Freddie always looks, somehow, particularly undersized in them. The cough shudders through him again, and Jim feels him wake up. 

Ninety minutes later, he is standing outside in the chilly night air as two paramedics load Freddie into the back of their ambulance. The oxygen mask looks too big for him, which is ridiculous, it can’t be, but underneath it, his face is scared, although Gordon is right there, ready to go to the hospital with him –

“I need to ride with Freddie,” Jim says. “It’s—hard for him–” He breaks off, because saying anything about why or how would be too much, and Gordon’s nodding anyway. 

“I’ve got Freddie’s phone,” Phoebe’s saying, and Jim takes it, but his fingers feel numb. What is Phoebe on about? Phone? He pockets it obediently, though. In case Freddie wants it. In case he wants Jer. 

The paramedic radio is crackling, dreadfully loud, and the young guy with a moustache a little like Freddie used to wear—but he’s about three times Freddie’s size—yells into it. 

“Gentleman in his early sixties,” Jim hears, “Flu-like symptoms, started a few hours ago and his partner had the GP out because he’s deteriorated a fair bit… No, on antivirals for HIV, and the GP’s with us, last sat was 87…” 

Christ knows he’s no doctor, but he understands enough to know it isn’t a good number. Impossible that it’s just hours since he was watching Freddie snuggle up to Roger, tease him, almost baptise him with champagne. He can’t be in danger. 

There’s another aggressive crackle from the radio, like something in a film, not real.

“Yes,” the paramedic shouts back, “Sepsis or—query swine flu, okay, okay–” 

The blue lights, with uncanny timing, flick on.

*


	4. The One Who Has Nothing Wins

*

Peter has commandeered the plasticky orange armchair, he’s drawn it up close to the bed. He can see firsthand that Freddie’s breathing well enough. The bed rails are up, though. He must be kept safe.

It’s after ten o’clock in the morning, but Freddie is asleep, at long last ... sleeping peacefully, after the drips and the nebulisers and ‘something’ to calm him down, a Valium, the dose reassuringly tiny. Sleeping, now, through the clatter of the ward which bleeds into their side room, the noise of monitors and the frantic beeps of occluded lines, the still eager voices of the staff, at this time of day. Many of them seem very young, and it’s strange to follow their orders, put on the flimsy surgical mask they insist he has to wear. But of course he does it.

Jim has been packed off to the cafeteria. 

Not wanting to go, insisting he won’t, but unable to stand firm against the combined, alarming forces of Peter and a solemn-faced Matron who had popped by to check on Freddie a little after nine fifteen. In Freddie’s opinion, when he is an unwilling guest of the National Health Service, those in its employ can be attentive to a fault. He isn’t ungrateful, but the shyness has never gone away, and he’s even inclined to pretend to be asleep when new people come in. 

_No one wants you to cop it on their shift, mate. Can you blame them?_

When Roger said that, he and Jim had almost begun to have a row—until Freddie stopped it, of course. 

Oil on troubled waters, isn’t he? Peter holds his left hand, avoiding the right. His right wrist has the art line in it. The tube seems big, probably painful. Even Freddie can’t be said to look like a child, not now, not any more; but he’s pinched and small inside his gown, and there are too many tubes snaking out from under the bedclothes. Crackly white sheets, thin blue blankets. 

It’s all NHS stuff. No one’s had a chance to bring his own clothes, his own quilts, from Garden Lodge. Normally he always wears nightclothes of his own, it’s not as if they have to worry about the money side of things: if something has to be cut off, if it’s soiled, they can afford to throw it away. So he looks all wrong now, in the too-large swaddle of fabric with its little geometric print: yellow and green, but not the shade of yellow that Freddie likes. His shoulders are drowning in it. 

There’s not enough flesh on his face, Peter thinks, stroking cold fingers. Oh, Freddie. Sorry to be dramatic, dearie. 

Exhausted as he is too, he wonders if he’s beginning to verge on hysteria. The thought obtruding itself again and again upon his unwilling mind is that if Freddie’s swabs do come back positive for swine flu ... If it is. If things worsen. If the worst –

Well, what an awful thing to die from, and Freddie would simply _hate_ it. He’d never agree! 

Not in a hundred years—if we could have them, Peter finds himself thinking, and swallows.

The hand in his jerks. 

“Freddie,” he says quickly. “I’m here—morning, flower...” 

Dark eyes looking up at him. Recognition, but with it the unmistakable edge of fear. 

Freddie’s breath is hitching, but it’s not the cough, only fright, and being startled. No need to press the call bell, not yet; no strangers wanted. 

“Jim’s rung Mummy and Kash,” he says, soft as soft. “Mummy will come and see you later, when we’ve got you a bit more settled. And Jim’ll be back soon, just gone to have a bite. It’s morning proper, now. Don’t you worry...” 

Freddie tries to answer, and coughs instead. 

Phoebe doesn’t sound like himself, talking through the doctor-like face mask they’re making him wear. His eyes are swimming in dark pouches of skin.

He can’t be old. He can’t be old –

“Oh, love,” Phoebe says, “Don’t–”

The oxygen tube in his nose is itchy, already sore-feeling, scratching at him inside, and he pulls at it experimentally with his free hand as Phoebe lets go, turns away to pick up the water cup. 

“Here,” he begins to say, turning back, but then he puts it down again at once and he’s standing up, and his large, comforting hand is warmly covering Freddie’s, disengaging it from the tube. 

“That has to stay in your nose, dear,” he says. “You can’t take it out.” 

He’s being a baby. 

Phoebe won’t say that outright, no one will say that now, not like they used to. Slutting around till you get what Freddie still privately thinks of as The Virus has turned out to be not only the final shame you can visit on your family, but also an assured way to get people to treat you like bone china for the rest of your (probably not long) life. Combine it with a mental breakdown and they’ll even try to let you win at Scrabble, which is _insulting_. 

“...And don’t try to touch this one in your wrist,” Phoebe’s saying, giving him water out of the hospital beaker. “Is the catheter hurting?” 

It is. But he says it isn’t. Maybe he didn’t hear properly, since Phoebe’s talking to him through that mask, if anyone gets cross, he can say it was that... 

“That’s good. The reg told me that as soon as your levels come up a bit they’ll take it out, and you can use a commode.” 

He nods weakly. It doesn’t get less awful. He refuses to think about pissing himself in the ambulance, especially right in front of Gordon. It could be a dream, maybe, something that never actually happened – 

Jim’s backing into the room, a big paper takeaway cup in each hand. “Brought you a coffee, Pete,” he murmurs as he steadies them, getting through the heavy side-room door. 

And then he sees Freddie, and Peter has to dive across the floor to take the cups out of his hands. 

He’s over by the bed in a moment. His familiar callused hand strokes across Freddie’s brow, his cheekbones—the well-known fingers map his chin, his lips. He doesn’t even have a mask on, his whole face is beaming down at Freddie: saying without any words that he’s glad Freddie isn’t dead, that that’s all he wants from today, and he’s got it, he’s content. 

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Freddie says into Jim’s hand, and Jim’s fingers wipe his eyes with a gentleness that most people would be surprised to see emanating from a body that looks roughened, looks well-used. 

Freddie is not surprised, not any more. 

“Rog wants to come and see you,” Phoebe says, his voice softened and normal. He sounds much less frightened than he did two minutes ago, Freddie thinks. Jim’s presence is like a magic spell: what I didn’t know I was looking for, all those years ago. 

“Yes,” Jim says, letting down the rail of the bed so he can sit, can gather Freddie into his arms. It isn’t easy with all the tubing to manage, but it’s not their first time.

Once he has Freddie safe and sound, Jim adds, “He thinks he’s poisoned you, I believe. Says it’s not the first time—something about bread sauce? I’m afraid I wasn’t as on the ball as I might’ve been.” 

Freddie giggles damply, but his face is full of worries. “Not like _this_—I don’t want anyone to see me,” he says, his fingers catching in Jim’s shirt sleeve. “Just you and Phoebe...” 

“It’s only Roger,” Phoebe says, in the tone of one who has known that gentleman through many Rogerian ages, including those that were not among the most dignified. “Not Sarina or the kids—Mummy will come later, and Brian tomorrow, he said, when he’s back...” 

“You’re poorly, my darlin’,” Jim murmurs. “No one expects you to be all sparkly.” 

But Freddie’s throat thickens into tears, and his eyes go wet and useless. How to explain that Roger’s had more than his fair share of looking-after-Freddie, back in the old days, that saddling him with any more of it now is unfairness of the first order? 

Nobody really _wants_ to come to the hospital. 

For Brian it’s too lowering, it’s risky: surely they ought to see that it might nudge the dark thoughts within him, waken them, give them a good bloody feed? Irresponsible. Selfish. It’s not as though Freddie’s even alone, there’s no excuse –

“Freddie,” Brian said, more than a year ago now. “You have to stop trying to protect me. I’m a lot better, love, I promise. You can tell me the truth, I want to know—I want to help. I might understand better than you think.” 

Of course, Brian’s father has died. But his father loved him, as who could not love Brian?

Phoebe is dabbing at Freddie’s eyes now with a hospital tissue. He ought to do it for himself. Half the problem, wasn’t it? To never be enough of a man, not once, only a shadow or a poor simulacrum. A puppet worn on some other fellow’s engorged cock. Used and done with. 

“I don’t want to worry her,” Freddie whispers, hearing the panic in his voice. “Mummy can’t come, she can’t, Roger can, but not–”

His eyes are closed. In the dark he hears a small forest of noise outside: it’s the noise of keeping people in this world, ticking solidly onwards. Bleep-bleep, bleep-bleep. The resilient machines, sucking up power and spitting out medicine, oxygen, anything you need. Sirens outside, just like the ambulance siren in the middle of the night. They didn’t turn it on right away because the streets near Garden Lodge were still empty, but as soon as the traffic picked up, it started to howl up above, and Freddie wailed too, clung to Gordon’s arm, coughed and coughed under the mask. 

No need to look. He’s certain Jim and Phoebe are giving each other their Freddie-can-be-so-unreasonable sideways glance. It’s their own fault, though. They shouldn’t have bothered Mummy, shouldn’t have _worried_ her. 

It is no act of a dutiful son, and he can still try to be that.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys liked this update; thanks for reading!


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